St Helena's Island located in the Port Royal Sound of South Carolina is thought to be one of the oldest settlements in the United States. Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón discovered the area around 1520 in his quest to colonize the islands along the coast. An adjacent island named Port Royal (now Beaufort) was once the capital of the Spanish colony in Florida. In an area so rich in history, there are ghosts behind every Spanish moss draped tree.

Along Old Sheldon Church Road stands the ruin of what was once known as Prince William’s Parish Church in Yemassee, South Carolina. Now it goes by the name of the Old Sheldon Church Ruins. Built between 1745 and 1753 it witnessed mundane family celebrations as well as history making events, so it is not surprising that it has a reputation for being haunted.

On the corner of SW 232nd Street and 157th Ave, Homestead, Florida sits a two-story building encircled by a chain link fence. The openings for the windows are boarded up and it dilapidates by degrees. None would guess by its appearance now that over 100 years ago it served the farmers in the area not only to purchase supplies but a place to trade information.

Living in a high-rise apartment complex can heighten the risk of contracting an illness

According to doctors living in an apartment complex can put you at a higher risk of contracting a disease. Presently we are dealing with COVID-19, but in reality this holds true for any type of contagious illness.

November, 1924, Fred Dean a well-liked rancher was found murdered in his bed. His head was bashed in and his throat slit with a razor. There were two other persons in the house. His wife and daughter who slept downstairs. What came to light during the trial where his wife defended herself of a murder charge held the country spellbound for several months.

Plague panel of this kind were placed on the walls of houses to warn against the plague c.15th century

October 1924, Los AngelesDr. Giles Porter with the City Health Department went to the home of Jesus Lajun located at 700 Clara Street. Mr. Lujan worked for the Los Angeles Railway. He was ill with what appeared to be flu-like symptoms; however his groin area was swollen and tender. His daughter Francisca, 15, also shared the flu-like symptoms. She was running a temperature, and complained of a sore throat and headache. The following day, October 4, her pregnant neighbor Luciana Samarno stopped by to check on her. Francisca's condition had worsened and she was taken to the hospital but died en-route. The cause of death listed on her death certificate was double pneumonia.157 rats and five squirrels [were] found to be plague infected” in rich and poor areas, including downtown, Beverly Hills and the harbor.

The first military hospital in Aldershot, Hampshire was situated near a church. It was established as a lunatic asylum and pestilence hospital. Close by was the Union Hospital which started out as a poor house. During the mid-1800s the Connaught Hospital for a while specialized in treating men with venereal disease, and ended as a dental facility which closed its doors in 1973. However long before it was abandoned there were stories about a mysterious gray lady.

Jinmenken is found in Japanese folklore. (Source - 1978 Film "Invasion of the Body Snatchers").

You look down a lonely alley, and see a mutt rummaging through trash on the ground. It's slunk low with its tail between its legs. You feel sorry for it and approach softly saying encouraging words to soothe a hungry and frightened animal Then it looks up from the refuse it's sniffing through, and you realize it's not a dog's face staring at you, but a human one with deep-set, sad eyes. It's says, "Leave me alone."

In June 1934 in Brighton, England a steamer trunk was found in King's Cross railway station. It contained a woman's torso and legs. The arms and head were missing. Scotland Yard reached out to the public in trying to identify the victim. In the United States, Agnes C. Tufverson, 43, had married a former Czech officer six months before. She disappeared, and the last heard from her was when she visited London. Her family wondered if it was her body that had been found.

The murder of Emma Levin in Monte Carlo made sordid headlines around the world

Vere Goold was born October 2, 1853 into a wealthy, Irish family. When he was 26 years old he became the first Irish tennis champion. His early success in sports faded and by 1883 he turned to alcohol and opium. However it took a turn for the worse when he met Marie Giraudin, a French, twice-widowed dressmaker.

John Hoch hung for the murder of one woman, but is believed to have killed dozens. He was known as the Chicago Bluebeard

John Schmidt was born in 1855 in Horweiler, Germany. He immigrated to the United States in the last years of the 19th century. He took advantage of this and changed his surname, and became known as Johann Otto Hoch after the murder of one of his first victims. He then went on to marry several different women. Without benefit of a divorce from his previous bride (unless he had poisoned them) he would marry a new woman, swindle her out of money, and if she were lucky he would just leave instead of killing them with a dose of arsenic. Then he would start the process all over again.

No known photograph of Joseph Henry Loveless exists, but researchers created this composite using images of his closest relatives and written descriptions of him. (DOE Project)

On August 26, 1979, a family hunting for arrowheads inside the Civil Defense Caves in Dubois, Idaho found a torso stuffed inside a burlap bag. It was clothed in a white shirt with blue stripes and a red sweater It remained unidentified until January 2020.

In 1875, Chicago's county hospital was located in the South Side. Even then it was considered old and rickety. The morgue was an out-house attached to the hospital. It was located apart from the main building because of the bad odor coming from it. Only during winter months did the place did not smell like a charnel house.

El Plomo boy is an Incan mummy discovered in 1954 in Chile .Age 5-8 at the time of death. He was the first mummy discovered in a series that would later reveal the Incan practice of sacrificing children to the gods that they believed to control water.

In the Andes foothills sits the ancient Incan village known as Iglesia Colorada. It is tucked in the Atacama desert, one of the driest regions of the world. From the late 1400s to early 1500s the Incan empire expanded its reach through war and conquest. It’s believed the inhabitants of this village resisted their conquerors and for their troubles were killed and their skulls used during the Inca’s Reign of Terror.

March 2009, Harold Crowder, died at age 83. He was the last one left alive of the foursome and fearsome Los Angeles Police Department’s “Hat Squad” assigned to the Robbery Detail during the late 1940s into the 60s. They were distinguished by the trademark white fedoras and tailored suits they all wore. The only exemption was changing the hats to straw ones for the summer months.

Chicago, October 1922.Joseph Klimek’s guardian angels were working overtime on his behalf. They may have dropped the ball when he married his wife Tillie, but they used his brother to assist. Suspicions and a visit to the doctor proved what he feared, his brother was being poisoned.

Our ancestors died due to lack of knowledge and modern medicine, but now we are understanding better the risks of "catching" a disease that was supposedly not contagious

Communicable diseases and wounds without modern day treatments of vaccines and antibiotics were deadly for our ancestors. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) 70% of worldwide deaths are a result of diseases that cannot be passed from one person to another.

There is a solitary outpost in Afghanistan known as "The Rock", short for Observation Point Rock (OP Rock). It's situated southeast of Patrol Base Hassan Abad. Sixty-five feet above the surrounding landscape it sits lonely and exposed on top of the ruins of an ancient medieval fort, made of mud and long since caved in. Arrow slits and turrets testify this piece of forbidding landscape has always been witness to battle, and the locals claim it dates back to the times of Alexander the Great (330 BC).

In 1913, 33-year-old Walburga “Dolly” Oesterreich had been married to Fred Oesterreich (pronounced “O-strike”) for fifteen years. He was a dour apron manufacturer who drank too much. They lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Among the 60 women who worked in Fred’s textile factory he was known as a skinflint and slavemaster who was never satisfied. Dolly as forelady, trailed behind him soothing disgruntled employees.

October 10, 1857, a baby girl was born to a farming family in Ontario, Canada. Her name was Elizabeth "Betty" Bigley. She was the fifth of what would be eight siblings. In childhood, she lost hearing in one ear and she spoke with a lisp. Because of this she was a quiet child, and like all silent introverts considered peculiar by those around them. She would drift into hypnotic spells, which she would awaken from disoriented. Wherever Betty went in those moments of introspection, one can only guess at.

A sketch of the dead child dubbed "Little Lord Fauntleroy" in an effort to identify him c.1921

The Roaring Twenties are remembered for speakeasies hidden in remote locations or the basement of a building. Slim flappers shimmy while drinking illegal hooch; perhaps you think of gangland killings as the criminal side of Prohibition but there were other dark deeds being committed, even against the innocent.

South Dearborn Street in the Levee, c. 1911. The Everleigh Club, a notorious high-priced brothel, is on the far right. These murders took place in this Chicago tenderloin area infamous as a red-light district from the 1880s until 1912

One day later after Anna Furlong was found murdered in her South Side room, six blocks away at 251 Armour Ave, two small boys came across something wrapped and frozen inside four towels. It was the victim's head with her mouth cut from ear to ear. The skull was crushed.

The ruined tabby houses pictured are the remnants of cabins of Zephaniah Kingsley on Fort George Island. The houses, built of shell were in crescent arrangement, reminiscent of the faith of many of Kingsley's slaves. c.1945 (Credit Tampa Bay Times)

Zephaniah Kingsley, a Charleston merchant originally from New England, acquired a plantation in 1814 from John McInstosh. It had been built in 1797 on St. George Island (originally known as Fort Georgia Island) that is located northeast of Jacksonville, Florida at the mouth of the St. John’s River. He grew cotton, sugar cane, citrus and corn. Many strange stories grew around this two hundred year old property known as the Kingsley Plantation, but none more disturbing than the demon spirit of Old Red Eyes.

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